User:Feredir28/Kent Hovind's Creation Seminar: Lies in the Textbooks

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Kent Hovind's Creation Seminar: Lies in the Textbooks is a seminar where Mr. Kent Hovind spews his Christian young earth pseudoscience propaganda. Hovind claims to have taught high school science for 15 years. While mainly attacking the age of the earth, it also includes several other ad hocs and topics. The program is over 2 hours long, so only the main points will be addressed in this review.

Content[edit]

Hovind's Lies in the Textbooks RationalWiki Responses

Introduction: Eric Hovind[edit]

The program begins with an introduction from Mr. Hovind's son, Eric Hovind, who introduces his father and explains that the school textbooks contain lies and misinformation, and that the seminar will reveal what they are.RW will show where, and why, the Hovinds are not just completely wrong, but also lying hypocrites.


Opening: Kent Hovind[edit]

Kent Hovind starts off by saying that he likes science, he is just against lying. He says that several things in these textbooks are not true, and someone out there is trying to "convert" our children into a particular belief system. Hovind says this happens all the time, and even Hovind admits he is doing it to the audience right now, but he insists that nobody should use lies to accomplish that. So Hovind proclaims he is going to show us some lies in the textbooks. We at RationalWiki agree that you shouldn't use lies to change people's minds, but Hovind has already shot himself in the foot. Hovind claims to like science, but hate lying. And as we shall see throughout this review, he is being hypocritical.


1. In our first seminar, we showed the students are being lied to about the Big Bang, it did not happen. They are being lied about the age of the earth, the earth is not billions of years old. They are being lied to about 'cave men', there never was a cave man unless you mean Osama bin Laden. They are being lied to about the dinosaurs, dinosaurs did not live millions of years ago, dinosaurs lived with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. And on this tape, we are going to talk about at least 25, maybe 26 or 30 if we get time, lies that students have to face in the textbooks. And then on tape #5 we are going to tell you what you can do about it and some of the dangers of this philosophy. 1. The first seminar did not prove the Big Bang never happened. Rather, it just displayed Mr. Hovind's ignorance of the subject for confusing the origins of stars with the origin of the universe. The earth is indeed billions of years old. Claiming that 'cave men' never existed is preposterous, otherwise we would not have numerous examples of prehistoric man-made cave paintings, ritual sites in the deep caverns, or the discovered man-made hand weapons inside the caves. Dinosaurs never co-existed with man, nor was there a garden of Eden with every human deriving from two biblical mythical individuals. We at RW will help determine who is being lied to.


2. Let's get something straight: I am not trying to get evolution out of the schools. I am not trying to get creationism in the schools. I just want the lies out of the textbooks. I believe if we take all the lies out of the textbooks, there will be nothing left to support the evolutionary theory. Okay, that's their problem. If all you have to support your theory are things that have been proven wrong years ago, I think it is time you get yourself a new theory. 2. "I am not trying to get evolution out of schools." Outright lie, and he knows it. Hovind's idea of 'lies' is anything that contradicts Scripture, and since reality does conflict with his beliefs, his faith demands that he suspend observable reality in favor of delusional fantasy. "If all you have to support your theory are things that have been proven wrong years ago, I think it is time you get yourself a new theory." Not once has evolutionary theory been proven wrong in over 150 years. Creationism on the other hand has never once provided any positive, provable evidence that the earth or life was of special supernatural creation.


3. Is there anyone here who thinks textbooks should legally be allowed to lie to the students for any reason? Wisconsin has a law that requires textbooks to be accurate. So does Alabama (and so do several other states). The problem is, none of those states, including your state enforce the law of the book. The books are simply not accurate. 3. The books are accurate. Books that are not accurate, like creationist propaganda like Of Pandas and People have been thoroughly reviewed and utterly discredited, and are thus not permitted to be used in schools.


4. Hovind shows a textbook that was written in 1908 that says "God created the Heavens and the earth in six days, all that was made was very good." Then Hovind shows a textbook from 2000, which says "Evolution is a fact, not theory." I think a lot has changed since then folks. By the way, when this person says evolution is a fact, it is a complete mantra. If you think you can say it loud enough, long enough, everyone will believe it? It is not a fact, evolution is a religion. While the books says "even though some scientists and religious leaders no longer see evolution and religion as in conflict, a minority of Christian fundamentalists remain opposed to evolutionary biology." This is called 'slanted journalism' folks. A minority of fundamentalists, they try to marginalize those, when it is the majority of the population of America. That is not a minority. It says over here, "creation science teaches that all creatures were created by God roughly ten thousand years ago and they have not evolved since." We can stop right there, that is not what creation science teaches. Creation science teaches all the "kinds" of animals were created roughly tens of thousands of years ago, and the only evolution has been variation within those kinds. So they are setting up a straw man here to knock it down and think they won the argument. Reading on, "as scientists, we know that these disputations are false." Over here, they say "if we prevent our secondary school students from learning what science has to offer..." - let's stop right there. I am not trying to prevent students from learning what science has to offer. I love science! I am trying to prevent students from being lied to, but man show us what science has to offer so we can observe, test and demonstrate it. Evolution is not part of science -that's the problem. "...we believe that students will not be able to compete in college classrooms or in today's global economy." This is the evolutionists' altar call, right there. The world will end if we do not preach evolution, oh the sky is falling. Teach more evolution or we are all going to die. They somehow think that their religion is somehow important in our schools and it is not. 4. Something happened after 1908: in 1937 the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to teach creationism in schools, because it violated the Establishment Clause. Evolution is indeed a fact. Facts are observable phenomenon, and evolution can be and has been observed many times. The majority of the American population are not Christian fundamentalists who express their distaste for evolution, the American people are merely "sheep" being told what to believe and how to think by a small group of fundamentalists. Mr. Hovind and all creationists never clearly define what they mean by "kinds." The textbook definition of creation science is not a straw man; Mr. Hovind merely added in a single word and then complains that it was a straw man. A straw man is constructing a phony argument representing the opposing view and then refuting it. Creationism does teach that the earth and the animals were specially created, and the animals have not evolved (in the respect of Darwinian evolution) since then. Creationism refuses to accept speciation occurs, a critical part of evolution. Mr. Hovind simply denies that such a change ever occurs, and he has already made it clear that he will refuse any bits of evidence no matter what. Evolution is not a religion, and Mr. Hovind knows this. Evolution as religion has been rejected by the courts:

Assuming for the purposes of argument, however, that evolution is a religion or religious tenet, the remedy is to stop the teaching of evolution, not establish another religion in opposition to it. Yet it is clearly established in the case law, and perhaps also in common sense, that evolution is not a religion and that teaching evolution does not violate the Establishment Clause.

The court cases Epperson v. Arkansas, Willoughby v. Stever, and Wright v. Houston Indep. School Dist. are cited as precedent. The main harm from not teaching evolution is that we would be robbing our children of what truth is; imagine if we refused to teach them things like gravity or the theory of germ disease. And that is exactly what Mr. Hovind is promoting, removing pieces of science that conflicts with his personal beliefs.


5. This textbook has over 100 pages of evolutionary theory presented to the kids, not one mention of creation. If they do mention creation, it is always in ridicule. 5. Creation is not included in science textbooks for a reason: its not science. If creation is ever mentioned in a textbook, it is mainly confronted or ridiculed as not being scientific (which it isn't) and thus explains to the students why creation does not belong in science classes.


6. This chart here shows how the atheists rate the teaching of evolution in our schools in the United States on how well they teach evolution.[1] If your state is red, then they think you are doing a lousy job. The green states are doing a great job at teaching evolution. They ought to be ashamed of themselves. 6. The only ones who should be feeling any shame are despicable liars like Mr. Hovind.


Interpreting Evidence and Scoffers[edit]

1. It has always amazed me how two different people can look at the same thing and come to opposite conclusions of what they are seeing. Two people can look at the grand canyon, one of them believes in evolution. He looks at the Canyon and says 'wow, look what the Colorado River did in millions and millions years.' The Bible-believing Christian looks at the same Grand Canyon and says, 'Wow, look what the flood did in about 30 minutes.' 1. Hovind presents a false scenario. The one who accept evolution most likely accepts the things based on evidence. There is no evidence for a massive flood forming the Grand Canyon. Here are several reasons. The Grand Canyon is about 300 miles long. For the water to get to one end to the other of the Canyon in 30 minutes would require the water to be moving 10 miles a minute, that is almost equivalent to traveling about the speed of sound. (1 mile is 1,609.344 meters, so the Grand Canyon is about 482,803 meters long. Speed of sound is 340.29 m/s, or 20,417.4 m/min. Do the math 482,803 m/20,417 m per min. is about 23 minutes.) Also, Hovind tries to portray the person who accepts evolution as being biased. Science is not biased, religion is. Religion is a bias by definition. That’s why it relies on propaganda. But science dispels propaganda because it eliminates bias by design; it has to because it’s an investigation, not a predetermined conclusion like religion is. So every proposition must be requisitely evidential and potentially falsifiable, and must be subjected to a perpetual battery of independent and unrestricted tests wherein anyone and everyone who thinks they can is welcome to try and find and expose from flaw in it –to correct it. Creationists won’t subject their beliefs to any of that because they’re not interested in finding out what is really true. They want to defend their preferred beliefs whether they’re true or not.


2. Hovind tells a joke of a city man witnessing a farmer assisting a cow give birth to a calf. The calf's legs were coming out first. So the city man has one question: how fast was that calf going to get stuck in the cow? Hovind uses this joke at turns it to argue that is similar to what is going on here. Two people can look at the evidence and come to different conclusions. Hovind says: the Bible warned this would happen in 2 Peter 3:3, that in the last says scoffers will come - people who scoff at the Bible. I deal with them on a regular basis. And the Bible says they will walk after their own lust, see they do not like the Bible because of science, they do not like the Bible because of their lusts. Hovind then quotes 2 Peter 3:4, which says the scoffers will say things that are happening now is because they have always been that way for a long, slow, gradual processes: Unitarianism. The Bible says (2 Peter 3:5) the scoffers will be willingly ignorant, in Greek that means dumb on purpose. They are willingly ignorant how God made the heavens and the earth (we covered that in previous seminars). 2. Does Hovind know that 2 Peter is considered by the vast majority of critical Bible scholars to be a forgery? Evolution, biology, and science does not "scoff" at the Bible, they observe and explain reality. Reality conflicts with what is written in the Bible, particularly Genesis. When something does not agree with reality, it is a lie. Blaming this obvious problem by pointing at critics and labeling them non-believers because of their natural human emotions is a fallacy and a despicable ploy to hide the truth.


3. One of the last scoffers was James Hutton. Hutton lived in the late 1700's, he wrote a book saying the earth is older than everybody thinks. You need to understand during James Hutton's lifetime, most people believed in the Bible, and most people thought the earth was 6,000 years old. This was also a time of many revolutions (American Revolution, French Revolution, etc). Everyone is getting rid of the king and establishing democracies. Well whether that is good or bad is another subject, but the fact is the Bible says to honor the king (1 Peter 2:17), and some people thought the Bible was an obstacle to their political objectives. And so they wanted to discredit the Bible. So back when everyone thought the earth was several thousand years old, James Hutton came along and said it's millions of years old. He was one of the first Western guys to come across this idea and thought wow, maybe the earth is real old. James Hutton developed an idea called Uniformitarianism: the present is the key to the past. In other words, the way things are happening now is the way things have always been happening. Just like Peter prophesied, these guys would come. Well, I think the Bible is the real key to the past, but that is another story. The fact is, James Hutton's book had a strong influence on a lawyer named Sir Charles Lyell (a man who hated the Bible). 3. Incorrect, in 1779 the minimum age of the earth was determined to be 75,000 years old. Ancient Greeks, Hindus, and various other groups have their independent beliefs that the earth was older than 6,000 years. Isaac Newton believed the universe was infinitely old.


4. In 1830, Charles Lyell wrote a book Principles of Geology. Here in this book, you can see his hatred for the Bible on every page, this guy did not like the Bible. He kept referring it as 'ancient doctrines' (pg. 30) and said that people have 'religious prejudices' (pg. 197) because they believe the Bible, he said that 'men were of superior talent who thought for themselves and were not blinded by authority...' (pg. 302). I mean, you can scam through it yourself and find that he did not like the Bible. Charles Lyell said his goal was to "free the science from Moses" (Source:Life Letters and Journals, published by John Murray 1881). What do you suppose he meant by that? You see, when people read what Moses wrote will feel that God made the world in six days and the flood formed most of the geology around the world. Noah's flood messed up the real estate big time. And if people believe the book Moses wrote, they are going to think that coal, oil, natural gas formed from the flood when things got buried. And they are going to think that the Canyons formed when water ran off from the flood. Lyell did not like that idea. He wanted people to believe the earth is billions of years old.see below


Lie #1: Formation of the Grand Canyon[edit]

1. A river did not make the Grand canyon over a period of millions of years. I debated this atheist one time and he said, 'Mr. Hovind, you are so dumb, don't you know that the Grand Canyon was formed by the Colorado River?' I said, "sir, I taught geographic science for many years. Did you know that in between these two lines is what we call a 'snow line' - there is a ridge right there. The grand Canyon enters at the far right, over there, the elevation of the river at that point is 2,800 feet above sea level. The river flows downhill for 270 miles and comes out the other side. And in between while the river is flowing down, the ground is rising up and slowly coming back down. It is so wide, at 270 miles, that you do not notice it until you get way back from a satellite. But if you look at it in a cross section, this schismatic shows the difference here, the rive flows through here, goes downhill and comes out the other side, it is actually going through a giant ridge (270 miles long). At the highest point of the ridge, the ridge is about 1,800 foot elevation so it is nearly a one mile drop down in the Canyon. Really big hole in the ground.

I said sir there are a few things you have to consider about the Grand Canyon. I said did you know that the top of the Grand Canyon is higher than the bottom? He said yes. I then asked him sir did you know that the river runs down the bottom? He said yes. I said sir did you know that the top is higher than where the river enters the Grand Canyon by over 4,000 feet (2,800 feet to 6,900 feet)? I said sir did you know that rivers don't flow uphill? I said sir did you know that there is no delta - nobody knows where the mud is that got washed out of there, but it is probably in the Pacific Ocean. They cannot find the delta for the Grand Canyon. There is no possible way for a river to make that Canyon. The Grand Canyon is obviously a washed out spill way.

If Mr. Hovind ignored all geology, he may have a case. When we examine the evidence, we come to a different conclusion. When we examine geology overall and its relation to the Grand Canyon, what we see is a tectonic uplift. The depth of the Grand Canyon and especially the height of its strata (most of which formed below sea level) can be attributed to 5,000 to 10,000 feet (1,500 to 3,000 meters) of uplift from the Colorado Plateau, starting about 65 million years ago. This uplift has steeped the stream gradient of the Colorado River ant its tributaries, which in turn has increased their speed and thus their ability to cut through rock. Before the uplift, the plateau region was about 1,000 feet (300 meters) above sea level and bounded by high mountains to the south and west. Basically, as the river began carving the canyon, the land was being uplifted. Lets not forget the that sandstone and limestone are extremely tough stones to which 40 days of rain/flooding wouldn't do much if anything at all in the terms of erosion.


2. There used to be two big lakes: Grand Lake and Hopi Lake, and they got too full one day - who knows when. I suspect shortly after the Flood, maybe a few hundred years later, the ice caps melted or something and the lakes got too full and the water went over the top while the ground was still relatively soft. Within the first few hundred years, washed out that Canyon in a hurry. There are still beaches were the lakes used to be, they call them Grand Lake and Hopi Lake. The lakes are long gone, but you can still see the beach line where the lake used to be. The Grand Canyon is a washed out spill way folks, the water got too deep, the water went over the top and washed out that whole region is a real big hurry. So when they tell you that it took millions of years, they are lying to you. It did not, it is not geologically possible. If the Flood created the grand Canyon, why is there only one Grand Canyon? Why don't we see canyons like this all over the world? Why does the Grand Canyon have the twists and turns as if a long period of erosion caused it? If a sudden gush of water caused it, why does it not appear in a straighter line?


3. If you look at the way most rivers come together, almost all rivers join at an acute angle (less than 90 degrees). You can look at nearly any map of the world, all rivers come together and go in the same general direction. Well, if you look at Grand Canyon, the rivers at the lower left side join at acute angles - normal river pattern. If you look at the right side, the rivers go backwards, and run into the channel, come around, and back the other way. This is evidence of a big lake that is draining. Any farmer who has ever built a dam will tell you once the water goes over the top of the dam, it can wash it out in a hurry. It does not wash away the whole dam, just one slot -wherever the water finds the weakest point. So the water is running backwards off the dam, hit the lowest region, turn around and back out the other way. The Grand Canyon was not formed by the Colorado River folks, the Grand Canyon was formed by a flood. A lot of water, with a little bit of time.


Lie #2: Geological Column[edit]

Charles Lyell in this book built from the work of a couple of other guys, he developed the idea that each layer of the earth is a different age and he invented what we call today "the geological column". He divided the layers, gave them a name, determined their age, and gave them an index fossil. Now this was done in 1830, long before there was carbon dating, argon dating, lead 2O6, and several other dating methods. All this dating was done on the assumption that each layer is a different age. They made up the whole thing under a clear blue sky. Now it is a fact that the earth has many layers of rock: how did they get there? 


1. Well, there are two interpretations. The evolutionist will say the layers got there from slowly forming over millions of years and each one is a different age. The Bible-believing Christian says oh no, these are all from the flood from the days of Noah. You can get a jar of dirt, shake it up, and it will settle all the layers of dirt for you in a few minutes. The evolutionists are always trying to make you believe their interpretation is part of the facts. 1. Anyone who takes up Mr. Hovind's challenge will quickly realize he is flat out wrong. The dirt will remained mixed, the heavier elements do not fall to the bottom, not do any layers appear at all. Obviously Mr. Hovind's scenario is demonstrably incorrect.


2. The geological column is actually the Bible of the evolutionist. It can be found only one place on planet earth. The only place you will ever find the geological column is in the textbooks. Ther is no geological column. This guy admits it, he said 'if there were a column of sediments...Unfortunately no such column exists." 2. No geological column!? It is mind numbing how far Mr. Hovind's delusions have sunk so deep that he can deny an observable reality. Read the whole paragraph Hovind left out, it says: "If there were a column of sediments deposited continually, since the formation of the earth, the center history of the planet could be reconstructed. Unfortunately no such column exists. Where sediments are missing, a break in the sedimentary record occurs. Breaks result from the gaps in the record that may range from a few years to hundreds of millions of years. Breaks in the sedimentary layers are called unconformities." Quoted from "Earth Sciences" (1987, pg. 326).


3. I debated a professor one time and he said 'oh, Hovind you are wrong. There are 26 places on the planet where the Geological column exists.' I said no sorry, you're wrong. There are 26 places on planet earth where the fossils are found in the order you want them to be, but it does not prove the geological column exists in any of those places. There is no geological column! If there was in one place it would be 100 miles thick. And the obvious question is 'where is all this dirt coming from?' One of the biggest lies that kids face today is the Geological Column -it's a joke, it's a hoax, it does not exist. But that really caused a lot of trouble in the world in 1830. 3. Hovind never shares who this "professor" is, nothing of his credentials, where he work and what field he worked in.


Lie #3: Lobed-finned fish[edit]

This textbook shows the kids a picture of a trilobite. It says trilobites are good index fossils. If you find a trilobite, it probably lived 500 to 600 million years ago. I do not think so. Somebody found a human foot print, some guy put his foot down and smashed a trilobite. They asked geologists all over 'how can humans step on a trilobite if trilobites lived 500 million years ago?' One guy said, well maybe aliens invaded the planet 500 million years ago. Another guy said maybe a trilobite shaped like a shoe that fell on a small one. Well, hey there are some big trilobites, but they are not shaped like a shoe. 2 Peter has got the best story about that one: the scoffers are willingly ignorant. You have to have help to be that dumb, couldn't do that on your own. Mr. Hovinds source for this footprint and a trilobite comes from Readers Digest Mysteries of the Unexplained pg. 38. Claims to be found by William Meister of Kearns, Utah June 1, 1968. Dr. H. H. Doelling of Utah's Geological Survey claims to have verified it was not fake.


Trilobite has the most complicated eye of all, ever! And that is supposedly one of the first creatures to evolve from the Cambrian explosion, I mean c'mon it's got an eyeball incredibly complex. Trilobites did not live millions of years ago, there could be trilobites still alive. There certainly are still isopods which are very similar, except one piece shell instead of three lobes, otherwise could be a descendant of mutant (by the way, which is a loss of information, not a gain). This textbook shows the kids a fossil Graptolite - this is the New York State fossil. It says 'Graptolites lived 410 million years ago' only problem is they found Graptolites still alive (in South Pacific). Now, if they are still alive, can they be found in any rock layer? Hm?


This one here shows the kids the Devonian period, and it says this here is from 325 million years ago. It has lobe-finned fish. They have a short leg and then the fin. Well, this is silly. Lobed-finned fish are still alive today. It is called the coelacanth. And when they first found the coelacanth still alive in 1938, thy said 'wow, will you look at this! They survived for 325 million years!' Ha, it never dawned on them one time to question the geological column. That thought never crossed their brain. This lady wrote a book about it, "A Fish Caught In Time" (by Samantha Weinberg) yes boys and girls, this is our on great uncle forty million times removed. I am not sure if I can help somebody like that.


Lie #5: The Layers are different ages[edit]

This textbook says that cretaceous and Jurassic period are from dinosaurs ta lived 70 million years ago. Oh, come on. Dinosaurs have always lived with man, we have covered that in video number 3. Dinosaur blood was found inside a T-rex bone about ten years ago. They did everything they could to disprove it, but couldn't. This is dinosaur blood cells. It is not going to last 70 million years. Human hand were found fossilized in the same strata as dinosaurs were found fossilized. The textbook says different ages, I'm sorry but that is baloney. The "evidence" Mr. Hovind provides for the fossilized human hand is Dr. Jamie Gutlerrez in South America.


Here they are, telling the kids that the rock layers are different ages, but all over the world petrified trees are found like this one, standing up connecting different rock layers.


So kids, when they tell you that the layers are different ages, you are being lying to. That is not true, do not believe that. 80-85% of Earth's surface doe not even have 3 geologic periods appearing in 'correct' consecutive order. This guy says "It becomes an overall exercise of special pleading and imagination for the evolutionary-uniformitarian paradigm to maintain that there ever were geologic periods." The geological column is a hoax! One of the biggest lies ever passed on by humanity. But the vast majority of the world believes it even though it does not exist. When they started teaching that in the 1830's people began to change their worldview away from what the bible teaches to this new view of Charlie Lyell from Scotland that each layer was a different age. This teaching had a really strong influence on a young preacher from England. There was a fellow you just graduated from bible college to become a preacher, his name was Charles Darwin. Mr. Hovind is quoting John Woodmorappe, which is not even his real name. He is a young-earth creationist by the name of Jan Peczkis. Geologist Dr. Kevin R. Henke from the University of Kentucky has written over forty articles which criticize Woodmorappe's statements on geology, various radiometric methods and the overall capabilities of radiometric dating, and accusing him of misquoting sources to support his arguments.[2]


History of Charles Darwin[edit]

The only degree he ever got was a theology degree, and today they call him a great scientist. He only had a theology degree, which is not bad, but he was not a scientist. Charles Darwin set sail aboard the Beagel and collect bugs for somebody back in England, and he decided to bring some books with him to read (he was gone for five years). As he set sailed, he brought his bible and a book by Charles Lyell, "Principles of Geology." That book changed his life forever. He slowly lost his faith in the Bible. By the way, later after he died, his wife started a rumor that he repented on his death bed. That rumor still circulates today, but apparently his wife made up the whole thing, nobody knows for sure, but that is what the research says. First, of all, it was not Darwin's wife, but a lady nicknamed Lady Hope - Hovind simply does not even care to get the conspiracies straight. The story of Darwin's recanting is not true. Shortly after Darwin's death, Lady Hope told a gathering that she had visited Darwin on his deathbed and that he had expressed regret over evolution and had accepted Christ. However, Darwin's daughter Henrietta, who was with him during his last days, said Lady Hope never visited during any of Darwin's illnesses, that Darwin probably never saw her at any time, and that he never recanted any of his scientific views[3]. The story would be irrelevant even if true. The theory of evolution rests upon reams of evidence from many different sources, not upon the authority of any person or persons.


Darwin sailed around the world and he stopped at these islands called the Galapagos Islands. There on those islands, Charlie noticed there were 14 different varieties of finches. Little birds, about this big, but their beaks were different. Now Charlie did not like birds too well, but he did raise pigeons, but he also liked worms. He was a strange guy. So he shot all kinds of birds to give the worms a better chance of survival - since birds eat worms. Anyway, he collected all these birds, these 14 varieties of finches, he studied them carefully and this led Charlie to say, "you know what folks? I think all these bird have a common ancestor." I bet you're right Charlie, it was a bird. And then Charlie said, "you know what, maybe this proves that birds are related to bananas." You may be think, 'oh he didn't say that.' Oh yes he did folks, I have his book right here. Charlie said in his book On the Origin of Species on page 170,

"It is truly wonderful fact... that all animals and all plants throughout all time and space should be related to each other..."

Isn't he saying that the birds and the bananas are related? He sure is. That is a lie. There is no poof that any animals are related to a different kind of animal - other than maybe a common designer.

All plants and all animals are eukaryotes, that means we all contain similar building blocks.


Charlie noticed something that is called microevolution, I do not like that word, think it confuses people and kids. I am going to use it so you understand what I mean. Microevolution is just merely variation, okay. Dogs produce a variety of dogs. Roses produce a variety of roses. Nobody argues about that. It is a fact folks, it happens. The question is, does it go any farther than that? Does it go into macroevolution, in which they change to a different kind. Well Brown, in the beginning of his book In The Beginning, he said "microevolution" is horizontal, macro is vertical, a different kind. Dogs probably had a common ancestor, even the Great Dane and the chihuahua had a common ancestor. I would not argue that the wolf, the coyote, the fox had a common ancestor, but every five-year-old kid knows they are the same kind of animal. We had one try it in the middle of the seminar, "okay you have a wolf, a dog, a coyote, and a banana. Which one is not like the others?" He got it right away: the banana. See the Bible says they bring forth after their own kind. National geographic here has an article "From Wolf to Woof: How the Dog evolved from a wolf." Well I do not argue with that, they probably did -but it is still the same kind of animal! You know what word really confuses people, "kind." Microevolution is easy to understand, creationists merely try to purposely make it confusing. If kinds were distinct, it should be easy to distinguish between them. Instead, we find a nested hierarchy of similarities, with kinds within kinds within kinds. For example, the twelve-spotted ladybug could be placed in the twelve-spotted ladybug kind, the ladybug kind, the beetle kind, the insect kind, or any of dozens of other kinds of kind, depending on how inclusive the kind is. No matter where one sets the cutoff for how inclusive a kind is, there will be many groups just bordering on that cutoff. This pattern exactly matches the pattern expected of evolution. It does not match what creationism predicts.


The Bible says they bring after their kind, not after their species. But this guy says, "the results of this and other similar surveys are startling because evolution has been a settled science for nearly a 150 years." They found out that 46% of adults in the United States do not think that humans had evolved. Well, you better define what you mean by evolve. And you better define what you mean by "kind." Already, Hovind showed that kind does not mean species, so it must be higher in taxa - but how much higher? Fixity of kinds is based on the philosophy of Plato, not the Bible[4]. Nowhere does the Bible say that kinds themselves cannot change and diversify. Reproduction "according to their kind" is entirely consistent with evolution, as long as it is recognized that kinds are not fixed. Howwever, this does not seem to be the case with Mr. Hovind. Do we have examples of evolution or speciation of organisms above the species level? Absolutely. Bear in mind that evolution does not say that dramatic changes occur in one or two generations. To see an example of evolution above the species level will require a population of similar species to diverse until they become so genetically separated that they cannot breed with each other. An example of this would be bears and dogs. Yes, bears and dogs once had a common ancestor (Family: Hemicyonidae). If you examine the skeletal structures of both dogs and bears, you will see there is not much of a difference, except that bears lost their tails. Both genetics and morphology have also verified that indeed dogs and bears are closely related to each other, and the fossil record shows us this transition. Today, creationists often call bears and dogs separate "kinds" - however the evidence clearly states that at one point they were the same.


Lie #7: Definitions of Evolution[edit]

Evolution has six different meanings. The word, “evolution” simply means “change over time.” But in the context of science, that word refers to an aspect of biology. Specifically, it is a process of varying genetic frequencies among reproductive populations; leading to (usually subtle) changes in their morphological or physiological composition, which –when compiled over successive generations- can increase biodiversity when continuing variation between genetically-isolated groups eventually lead to one or more descendant branches increasingly distinct from their ancestors or cousins. Or more simply, it is how life forms diversify via “descent with modification”.


1.Cosmic Evolution - the origin of time, space, and matter, i.e. the Big Bang. 1. Evolution does not comment nor is it relevant in cosmology.


2. Chemical Evolution - the origin of higher elements from hydrogen. The hydrogen from the Big Bang would have to evolve to all the 92 different elements plus the synthetic ones. However, Hydrogen cannot turn into another element. 2. Chemicals do change, despite Mr. Hovind's claims. The sun is powered by hydrogen converted into higher elements through a process called fusion. The energy from this conversion is what heats and lights the earth. If the creationist would argue that no one has ever been to the sun to verify this, we can perform the same process here on earth. There are numerous groups working on methods of fusion of hydrogen into higher elements, such as the International Thermal Nuclear Experimental Reactor currently being built in France which is designed to harness the energy released from fusion from hydrogen into helium. Even if the creationist were to ignore all of this, there are more graphic examples of fusion: atomic bombs.


3. Stellar Evolution - the stars would have to evolve. And nobody has ever seen a star form. We see them blow up all the time, and yet there is enough stars out there that everybody on planet earth could own 2 trillion of them. Those are the ones we know about. We do not know about the ones we don't know about. 3. We've seen a nebula, a nebula collapsing with bright new stars in the center, stars with protoplanetary disks, small disks of gas with something in the center, stars blowing up, ect. So we pretty much know how they form.


4. Organic evolution - the origin of life. 4. The theory of evolution applies as long as life exists. How that life came to exist is not relevant to evolution. Claiming that evolution does not apply without a theory of abiogenesis makes as much sense as saying that umbrellas do not work without a theory of meteorology. Creationists habitually misdefine their terms, and commonly insist that evolution means “life from non-life”. But of course that’s not right either. Evolution explains how life diversifies, not how it began. Since evolution at every level is -by definition- limited to the variation of allele frequencies inherited over generations of living organisms, then it obviously can’t operate where no genomes yet exist. The evolutionary process starts with genetics and can’t start before it. So how the first genes came about may seem similar to evolution, and may even involve a form of natural selection in some way, but it is in fact a very different chemical process called abiogenesis.


5. Macro evolution - change of one kind to another. 5. There have been hundreds of documented examples of speciation (which is macro-evolution, but creationists still insist these do not count.)


6. Micro evolution - variety within a species. 6. Mr. Kent Hovind already agrees that this is a fact. The only reason creationists cling to these “micro” and “macro” distinctions is so they can have some excuse to accept “small scale” evolution, which they begrudgingly admit cannot be denied even with the greatest faith; while still denying “large scale” evolution where their exact parameter of “how large” must remain illusive to prevent it ever being disproved. Of course that means “large scale” evolution can mean whatever they want it to at that moment. Frank Sherwin from the Institute of Creation Research recently defined macroevolution as “the origin of every kind of animal”, and later on in the same discussion, he changed his definition to “the origin of all life”. He knows he’s using the terms incorrectly. He simply doesn’t care! But the fact is he doesn’t get to conveniently redefine what these terms have always meant to the scientists who invented those words in the first place. According to Universities actually teaching this subject, microevolution is variation within species, and macroevolution is variation between species. The different breeds of dogs are an example of microevolution, while the different species of wolves and foxes, panthers and felines, horses and zebras, or llamas and camels –are all examples of macroevolution. Each set is definitely biologically closely-related, but they’re each different species.


Micro vs. Macro Evolution[edit]

Variations with Limits[edit]

See, variations do happen. That’s not the question. However, they have limits. Haven’t the farmers been trying to raise bigger and bigger pigs? Do you think they will ever get a pig as big as Texas? Probably not. I bet there is a limit in there, isn’t there. Haven’t roaches become resistant to pesticides? They will say, "See, Mr. Hovind, roaches have become resistant to pesticides, that’s evolution." No, no it is still a cockroach. And their resistance has limits. I bet they will never become resistant to a sledgehammer. In an evolutionist’s mind, they have no limits. This variation that does happen and is observable and stays within the kind, somehow the Devil has tricked them into believing that this goes on forever and there are no limits to these evolutions. Plus they are still the same kind of animal. It’s still a pig, or still a cockroach, or still a dog—it’s not anything different. If it is possible to walk twenty feet, it’s possible to walk twenty miles. So creationists insist there must be some “definite boundary” blocking the evolution of new “kinds”. But they won’t say where or what that boundary is. Creationists habitually misdefine their terms –if they can be forced to use definitions at all, because they will not be accountable. They can’t be, because they’ve decided in advance never to change their minds even if they’re proven wrong. If they were to find out that macroevolution was ever actually seen and proven to have happened for certain, their cultish faith would still forbid them to admit it. Instead they’d have to redefine their terms, to “move the goalposts” to some higher taxonomic level –but not so high as to have to admit where humans belong in the families of apes.


Genetic Information Already Present[edit]

And another major point, the information was already present in that creature for the variation. If you had a million cockroaches and you sprayed pesticide on them and it kills all but a hundred of them, the resistance was already in the cockroaches. The pesticide didn’t add the resistance. It just allowed that section of the population to survive.

Another major factor they don’t like to admit, when you get done going through this resistance phase, you have now limited the gene pool. What you have left is roaches that are resistant to a particular pesticide, but the genetic information is very limited from the original grandpa cockroach. So it’s not going to help the species anywhere. Somehow in their mind they think it does.


Hitler[edit]

Hitler said "Let me control the textbooks, and I will control the state." Do you know what else Hitler said? "Secular schools can never be tolerated because such a school has no religious instruction and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith.... We need believing people."-- Adolf Hitler, April 26, 1933


Mutations and Information[edit]

Lie #8 Fruit Flies[edit]

For instance, when I was in school we did the fruit fly experiment. They raised flies in the laboratory. They nuked them, they microwaved them, and they x-rayed them. They got those flies to have mutated babies. They got flies with curled wings. They fly around in circles and couldn’t go anywhere. Flies with red eyes, and white eyes and brown eyes. They got flies with no wings at all! What do you call that? A crawl? Can’t fly. After raising 80,000 generations of flies, they concluded: "well, boys and girls, we have some conclusions to reach. All the mutations that we observed made the fly worse off than great, great, great, great grandpa fly." Good observation. Everything they did to those flies wrecked them. Conclusion: "Flies must have evolved as far as they can go." No, no, no. (Jump, frog, jump.) You’ve got the wrong conclusion. It could be that God made the flies right the first time. Why do they have to conclude evolution is done? Fruit flies do not remain the same species of fruit flies. Drosophila melanogaster populations evolved reproductive isolation as a result of contrasting microenvironments within a canyon[5] We would not expect to see much greater divergence in historical times.


Mutations do not produce any kind of evolution, anybody who studies biology knows that. Pierre Grasse believes in evolution, but he says it does not work folks ("No matter how numerous they may be, mutations do not produce any kind of evolution" - Grasse, Evolution of Living Organisms 1977, pg.88). Here is a five-legged bull. That is a mutation, notice he did not get any new information. getting an extra leg is not new information, it is scrambling of existing information. Doesn't the bull already have legs? So it just made one in the wrong place, that's all. Here is a short-legged sheep, that is a mutation. No new information is added though, that is a loss of information. And he is the first one the wolf is going to catch. Here is a two-headed turtle, that is a mutant. It is not ninja, but it is mutant. But he is going to freeze first winter, because nobody makes a double-turtle neck sweater. Creationists insist that mutations are very rare and are usually, if not always harmful. But the fact is that the vast majority of mutations are completely neutral. They’d have to be because, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, there is an overall average of 128 mutations per human zygote! So apparently, in creationist terms, “very rare” means “more than a hundred per person right from the point of conception”. Because those are just the mutations we start out with. Our cells will mutate again 30 more times over the course of our lives, and some of these subsequent mutations can be passed on to our children too –usually with no more effect than those we recognize as family traits. As for the quote by Grasse, he actually supported Lamarckism, which was not unusual among some French scientist, as Lamarck was French. The Chair of Evolutionary Biology at the Faculty of Paris was previously held by two Lamarckism supporters. Lamarckism relies on an almost mystical belief that acquired physical characteristics can be passed on in some material way to your offspring. For example, if your father was of light build, by body-building and weightlifting you could ensure that your children would be born with a heavy build. This has no resemblance at all to modern genetics and it is surprising that a supporter of Lamarckism would hold a Chair in Evolutionary Biology in the second half of the 20th century. Unsurprisingly all his successors are neo-Darwinists. Was Pierre-Paul Grassé a bad scientist? No, he was an expert on termites, but his belief in Lamarckism based on national pride shows why science works the way it does. It is not one person's authority or ability to get books published that decides the validity of scientific theories, but rather an overall consensus.


You see, mutation is scrambling of existing information - it is not new information. If you scramble up the words in "Christmas" you get all sorts of different words but you are never going to get xerox, zebra, or queen. The letters are not available. And scrambling an existing gene code will not give you new information. This textbook shows the kids a four-winged fly. look what it says here now: Normal fruit flies have two wings. This mutant has four. This rare mutation, like most mutations, is harmful. Beneficial mutations are the raw material for natural selection. (Source: Biology, unknown author, 1996, pg. 324) Excuse me teacher, why don't they give an example of a beneficial mutation? Why do they show us a bad one and tell us about the good ones? You see, beneficial mutations are pure imagination. They do not exist in reality, you have to imagine that they happen. Nobody ever shows one. One professor said 'I know of a beneficial mutation.' I said what is that sir? He said people in Africa who get sickle-cell anemia are less likely to get malaria. I said sir, that is brilliant. That is like saying if you cut off your leg, you cannot get athletes foot. And by the way, that is the one they always bring out because that is the only one they've got. Guarantee, you get into a discussion about evolution ask someone for a beneficial mutation, I will guarantee they will bring that one up right there. That's all they've got. And that is not beneficial, neither sickle-cell nor malaria is beneficial. Imaginary beneficial mutation? Only one example? What world does Mr. Hovind live in? There are hundreds of beneficial mutations, which are open for the public to see for themselves. Here are several examples;
  • Kinfolk in the village of Limone Sul Garda in northern Italy have a mutation which gives them better tolerance of HDL serum cholesterol. Consequently this family has no history of heart attacks despite their high-risk dietary habits. This mutation was traced to a single common ancestor living in the 1700's, but has now spread to dozens of descendants. Genetic samples from this family are now being tested for potential treatment of patients of heart disease.
  • Another example of new variance is the Glycophorin A somatic cell mutation which has been identified in some Tibetans, which allows them to endure prolonged periods at altitudes over 7,000 feet without succumbing to apoplexia, or “altitude sickness”. A different, but similar mutation was identified in high altitude natives in the Andes.
  • Another example of that is the CCR5-delta 32 mutation. About 10% of whites of European origin now carry it. But the incidence is only 2% in central Asia, and is completely absent among East Asians, Africans, and tribal Americans. It appears to have suddenly become relatively common among white Europeans about 700 years ago, evidently as a result of the Black Plague, indicating another example of natural selection allowing one gene dominance in a changing environment. It is harmless or neutral in every respect other than its one clearly beneficial feature. According to Science-Frontiers.com, if one inherits this gene from both parents, they will be especially resistant, if not immune to AIDS.
  • For another example we’ve also identified an emerging population of tetrachromatic women who can see a bit of the normally invisible ultraviolet spectrum.
  • There’s also a family in Germany who were already unusually strong. But in one case, one of their children was born with a double copy of an anti-myostatin mutation carried by both parents. The result is a Herculean kiddo who was examined at only a few days old for his unusually well-developed muscles. By four years old, he had twice the muscle mass of normal children, and half the fat. Pharmaceutical synthesis of this mutation is being examined for potential use against muscular dystrophy or sarcopenia.
  • And then there’s a family in Connecticut who've been identified as having hyperdense, virtually unbreakable bones. A team of doctors at Yale traced the mutation to a gene that was the subject of an earlier study. In that study researchers showed that low bone density could be caused by a mutation that disrupts the function of a gene called LRP5. This clued them that a different mutation increased LRP5 function, leading to an opposite phenotype, that is, high bone density. According to their investigators, members of this family have bones so strong they rival those of a character in the Bruce Willis movie, 'Unbreakable'.
All of these are examples of specifically identified mutations which are definitely beneficial, and which have spread through the subsequent gene pool according to natural selection. This is one of many indisputable proofs of evolution in humans. But we’ve identified beneficial mutations in other many other species too.


If you think that process is going to turn a rock into a human over 4.6 billion years, you're absolutely blinded by Satan. That process isn't going to do anything. The textbooks do tell the kids that evolution and natural selection go together. This one says natural selection causes evolution. Now, creationists have no argument with natural selection, we thought of it first. Natural selection is a conservative process that keeps the species strong. That's all it does, it does not create anything new. "[Natural selection] may have a stabilizing effect, but it does not promote speciation. It is not a creative force as many people would have suggested." (Daniel Brooks, as quoted by Roger Lewin, “A Downward Slope to Greater Diversity,” Science, Vol. 217, 24 September 1982, p. 1240.) "Natural selection can act only on those biological properties that already exist; it cannot create properties in order to meet adaptational needs." (Parasitology, 6th ed. Lea & Febiger, p. 516). Natural selection only keeps the species strong, it does not create anything. This textbook says "finches with larger beaks and stronger beaks were better able to open the tough pods than the finches with smaller, weaker beaks. Many of the finches with smaller beaks did not survive the drought. The next year, more finches on the island had larger and stronger beaks. Evolution by natural selection occurred in just one year." (Prentice Hall Focus on Life Science 2001, p. 144) This is a book for a junior high kids. Evolution did not occur, the beaks were (I think) one-half a millimeter longer. The next year, when they had a good crop, all that advantageous beak shape disappeared. You better look at the book Icons of Evolution. This textbooks says "over a long period of time, natural selection can lead to evolution." (Prentice Hall Focus on Life Science 2001, p. 141). That is a lie, natural selection leads to a stabilizing of the species, it does not lead to any evolution. Creationists thought of natural selection first?


Lie #9 Peppered Moth[edit]

I know in England someone went around and counted the moths on the trees. (Must have been a government project.) They discovered it was 95% light colored moths only 5% black. Then they started burning coal in the factories and the trees turned black and they went around and counted the moths again and found that it was now 95% black moths and only 5% light. They said, "Wow, look at this! Evolution right in front of our eyes! The white moth evolved into a black moth!" No, no, no. See, when the tree turned black the white moth lost his camouflage. They were burning coal in the factories and made the trees turn black and he lost his camouflage. He stuck out like a sore thumb and he got eaten by a bird. And the black moth had more babies that survived. But they said, "Boys and girls we can conclude that the moth population ratio shifted from mostly white to mostly black." That’s true. "The moth population was able to adapt to a new environment. See, boys and girls, this helps prove we all came from a rock." No, no, no. Actually the peppered moth is proof of design.

They even had the kids do activities on this one. "Boys and girls get a large piece of black paper one meter square." (By the way, I like to kick this dog every time I walk by. Did you know all of the new textbooks that I’m aware of are metric? Now, I understand the metric system very thoroughly. I taught physics. I’ll take a metric quiz against anyone you know. But I’m not sure I want a kid coming to help build my house that doesn’t know what a two by four is. So if you are a patriot, make your paper a 39.37 inches square instead.) "And then get 200 black circles and 200 white circles and cut them out and throw them on the paper. Okay now, boys and girls. We are going to see how many can pick up the most in one minute. Ready, set, go!" Well, of course you are going to pick up the white circles off of the black paper! You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure that out. And then they say, "See, boys and girls, this proves evolution." No teacher I think this proves that we have extra money to waste in our school district. We just cut up a whole bunch of good paper and threw it on the floor. Actually the peppered moth is proof of design. God designed the animals to survive in any environment. If it is dark or light they can still survive. That’s called planning ahead. By the way, the variations in the moth, the dark and the light variety, it’s still a moth. And it has limits. They never got a pink one, or an orange one or a green one. There are limits to the variations, and it was already programmed into the code of the moth gene pool. That’s not evolution. And see, providing two colors in the gene pool is pretty smart thinking. Did you know that Ford and General Motors put heaters and air conditioners in some of their cars? I’ve seen them. I drove one. Wait a minute. Doesn’t a heater and an air conditioner do the opposite thing? Oh yeah. Well, isn’t that dumb? No, that’s called planning ahead. They don’t know if it is going to go in a warm climate or a cold climate. So you put them both in there. The peppered moth is an example of God thinking ahead. That’s not evolution that’s an example of Creation.

Peppered moths are nocturnal, and during the day they hide under the leaves, not on the tree trunks. Despite this, the conclusion that bird predation and other factors cause differences in natural selection is still valid. As for the staging of the picture, finding a white and black moth together is difficult, so Kettlewell placed the moths so to illustrate to the reader what he felt was the mechanism of the natural selection. The staging does not change the fact of a dramatic increase in the carbonaria form in polluted areas and the dramatic increase in the typica form when the pollution was eliminated, and on the replication of this pattern on two continents. Regarding Hovinds remark (drenched in sarcasm) about life coming from a rock, Hovind is creating a straw man argument regarding abiogenesis, that is, the conditions of the first replicating systems on Earth. Forget biochemistry, only geology existed 4.6 billion years ago, according to Hovind. The first significant flaw with Hovind's rhetoric is that "rocks" are silicon (Si) based and life is hydrocarbon (H, C) based. Abiogenesis research is interested in carbon (gas or solid), hydrogen (gas), nitrogen (gas) and a motley collection of trace elements. None of these elements (excluding trace elements) is argued to have "came from a rock."


Homology[edit]

Lie #10: This proves a common designer[edit]

They will tell the kids we have evidence from structure, this is called the homology argument. They will tell kids that in your arm you have a radius and an ulna, then show them a picture of a whale flipper and show that they have a radius and an ulna too. Then they claim this proves that we are related to whales. (Showing a picture of different animal arm skeletons) "The homologues structures provide evidence that these animals evolved from a common ancestor." (Prentice Hall Focus on Life Science 2001, p. 152) They tell the kids "comparative anatomy - the study of the structures of different organisms. Comparative anatomy provides further evidence of evolution....The commonality suggests that these and other vertebrate animals are all related. They probably evolved from a common ancestor." (Glencoe Biology, 1994, p. 309) Hold on, that is a lie. This is proof that they had a common designer. You know, the same guy who designed them all might give them similarities wouldn't he? They do not tell you that those bones developed from different genes on the chromosomes. They are not proof of common ancestry, they are proof of common designer. Did you know the lug nuts of a Pontiac will fit on a Chevy? They will. That proves that they both evolved from a Honda 14 million years ago. No, that proves the same guys are making Pontiacs and Chevies.


Embryology[edit]

Lie #11: Humans and Gill-slits[edit]

This textbook says 'The presence of fish-like structure in embryos of different species shows that these animals evolved from fish and share he basic patter of fish development.' Does the human embryo have gills like a fish? That's what the textbook says. This is a lie, those are not gills they are little folds of skin developed after bones in the ear and glands in the throat. They never had anything to do with breathing. I have seen people with five or six chins and they cannot breathe through any of them but the top one.


Haekel’s Lie[edit]

A guy named Ernst Haekel made up this whole entire dumb idea back in 1869. See, Charlie Darwin’s book came out in 1859 and translated into German ten years later. He said, "We should find evidence for my theory." Ten years later they had none. So Ernst Haeckel in Germany—who also hated God—Ernst Haeckel said, "Wow, what a graet theory, if only we had some evidence." Nine years later they still had no evidence, so Haekel decided to make some. He was an embryologist professor, he took the drawing of a human and a dog embryo and he changed them and made them look exactly alike and said 'see this proves we have a common ancestor with dogs.' Well, no one caught him so he did a bunch more. He took all kind of different drawings of different animals and faked them, and he made them all look very similar. aekel made giaant posters of his fake drawings and traveled all over Germany and told everybody y'al should believe this new theory because we've got the proof right here (after all, he is a professor of embryology, he would not lie would he?) And how many people had microscopes back them to check them out? Heakel, just about single-handedly converted Germany into believing evolution, which led to the obvious concludion 'hey if this is true, then maybe one race has evolved father than the rest. I wonder who it is?' Must be the Germans. We will see where that led on tape 5. On top are Ernst Haekel’s drawings; on the bottom are actual photographs. Heakel lied deliberately. His own university held a trial, the University of Jena, in 1875. He said "I should feel utterly condemned...where it not that hundreds of the best observers, and biologists lie under the same charge." Heakels biological law is as dead as a door nail folks. It is not true, it never was true, proven wrong in 1875. He was convicted of fraud in his own University for lying, but his drawings as still used in the textbooks in your county tonight. proven wrong 125 years ago. Darwin wrote his book in 1859, he predicted that evidence would be found, 1869 Heakel faked the drawings, and in 1875 he was convicted of lying - but his drawins are still used in textbooks 125 years later. Glenco Biology showing the human embryo with gill pouches. Simply a lie. College textbooks still have it. Proven wrong in 1874. Ernst Haeckel was a pioneer zoologist and taxonomist whose numerous contributions to biology go largely unnoticed compared to a couple rather odd errors. First, he proposed that “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny", suggesting that embryonic development reflects the organism’s evolutionary ancestry. To illustrate this, he produced about a hundred drawings of embryos at various stages. But he later admitted that about a half-dozen of them were ‘falsified’ due to a lack of visual references. The fact that any of his drawings were admittedly without reference has disgraced Haeckel’s name in the annals of science.

Darwin wrote that embryology contained compelling evidence of evolution. Creationists dismiss this on the assumption that Darwin’s theory was inspired by Haeckel’s fraudulent drawings, and that consequently, evolution is a fraud. But of course the truth is the other way around. Darwin referred to real embryos; Haeckel’s drawings didn’t even exist until years after Darwin’s final publication.

What is especially sad about Haeckel’s “embellishments” was that they were unnecessary. Creationists adamantly complain that textbooks referred to his admittedly inaccurate drawings for so long. But for some reason, they continue to accuse those authors of fraud even when those books replace the drawings with microphotographs which still indicate those same evolutionary parallels which Haeckel envisioned. Now his original assumption that embryonic development would indicate adult species in an organism’s ancestral history was proven false by 1910. But the fact Darwin recognized, that embryology does provide testable confirmations and predictions of phylogeny was already evident before Haeckel ever picked up his pencil, and has recently began a new embryological study known as “evo devo”. Among other discoveries, this field revealed the evolutionary origin of the feather, as implied by transitional stages in the fossil record, and summarized in the formation of feathers in developing chickens.

It is no hoax that mammalian embryos temporarily have pharyngeal pouches, which are morphologically indistinguishable from the gill slits in modern fish embryos, and that the divergence of development from there matches what is indicated in the fossil record. This is fact, not fraud. And none of these facts should be true unless evolution were true also.


Lie #12: It's not a baby until conception[edit]

This textbooks shows a five to six week embryo but look what it says: "by seven months the fetus looks from the outside like a tiny normal baby but it is not." It is not a baby at seven months? Hello! It is not a human until conception. Every doctor knows that. 34% of babies born at 5.5 months are going to survive. Did you hear about the lady who had surgery on her baby before it was born? The cut her open, but the uterus open, and there is the baby holding the doctors finger - 5 months along. Let’s see, the angel of the Lord said, "Behold, thou art with fetus." No, I believed he said, "thou art with child" didn't he? Did you know it is a child before it is born? God knows that. You can read more about the embryology lie in the book Icons of Evolution. But why do they keep this lie in the textbooks anyway? That is the only way to justify abortion. They just want you to think it is just a fish, you are not killing a child. You are killing a fish. That is why it is in the books folks. Somebody wants to reduce the population of our planet. His name is Satan. We will cover more on that in video number 5 about the effects of this evolution teaching.


From here on, Mr. Hovind talks about Hitler's belief in evolution, that race and humanity was put up to vote which led to allowing genocide, and in the same way governments voted to allow abortion because fetuses are not children. Hovind bashes people who are "pro-choice."

Lie #13 Vestigial Organs[edit]

1. Textbooks often say that there are vestigial organs. This textbook says that the appendix is a vestigial organ. Now, wait a minute, vestigial is supposed to mean you don’t need it anymore. Excuse me but you do need your appendix, okay? It’s part of the immune system. If your appendix is taken out, you can still live; but just because you can live without it doesn’t mean you don’t need it. You could live without both of your legs and both of your arms too. That doesn’t mean you don’t need them. And by the way, the whole idea of a vestigial structure is the opposite of evolution.

The appendix is not vestigial first of all, and so it is a lie to teach that to the kids that it is vestigial. And even if there was a vestigial structure, that’s the opposite of what they need. So they say, "You know, man has a smaller appendix than a horse." Well, that may be true. It definitely is true. But that doesn’t prove we are slowly losing our appendix. We’ve just got a smaller appendix than a horse that’s all. See, what they do is look at any evidence and it becomes evidence for evolution in their minds. And that simply is not fair to teach the kids only one way to look at it.

Vestigial does not mean functionless. The appendix appears as part of the tissues of the digestive system; it is homologous to the end of the mammalian caecum. Since it does not function as part of the digestive system, it is a vestigial part of that system, no matter what other functions it may have. The human appendix may not be functional. Its absence causes no known harmful effects (other than surgical complications from removing it). When it is present, there is a 7 percent lifetime risk of acute appendicitis, which is usually fatal without modern surgical technique.


2. This textbook says, "The whale has a vestigial pelvis." Look what it says here: "many organisms retain traces of their evolutionary history. For example a whale retains pelvic and leg bones as useless vestiges." It is in many, many textbooks. They talk about the whale having a vestigial pelvis. Now, excuse me, that is not a vestigial pelvis! Those bones are necessary because muscles attach to those bones. And without those bones and those muscles the whales cannot reproduce. It has nothing to do with walking on land. It has to do with getting more baby whales. So the author that wrote this is either ignorant of his whale anatomy and should not be writing a book about it, or he’s a liar trying to promote his theory. I guess we can give him the benefit of the doubt and call him dumb. I hope he’s not lying to the kids deliberately. But that is not a vestigial pelvis. And those pages ought to be cut out of the textbook.

But here we have a children’s book. Whales & Dolphins. The first sentence in the book says, "Just imagine whales walking around. It’s true." That is pure propaganda. There is not one shred of evidence for that. Now, if someone wants to believe that, I suppose that’s fine. They can believe In the Tooth fairy, the Easter bunny, and Santa Claus, and evolution. I don’t care what they believe in. But I sure resent my tax dollars going to pay for that junk to go into the school system.

It is not propaganda that whales once had legs that could walk. According to the standard phylogenetic tree, whales are known to be the descendants of terrestrial mammals that had hindlimbs. Thus, we expect the possibility that rare mutant whales might occasionally develop atavistic hindlimbs. In fact, there are many cases where whales have been found with rudimentary atavistic hindlimbs in the wild[6]


The Basilosaurous is not a whale transitional fossil. "The serpentine form of the body and the peculiar serrated cheek teeth made it plain that these archaeocetes could not possibly have been ancestral to any of the modern whales" (B.J. Stahl, Vertebrate History, Dover publishers, 1985, p. 489). "...the evolutionary origin of whales remains controversial among zoologists" (Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia, 1996).


3. This textbook says, "Humans have a tailbone that is of no apparent use." I couldn’t believe it when I read that. I was doing a debate in Huntsville, AL. I was debating the president of the ‘North Alabama Atheist Association’ or something like that. And he got up in front of God and everybody and said, "Folks, we’ve got proof for evolution. The humans have a tailbone they no longer need." When it was my turn I got up and I said, "Mr. Patterson, I taught Biology and Anatomy. I happen to know there are nine little muscles that attach to the tail bone without which you cannot perform some very valuable functions." I will not tell you what they all are, but trust me, you need those muscles. I said, "However Mr. Patterson, if you think the tail bone is vestigial, I, Kent Hovind will pay to have yours removed. Bend over." Anyone who says that the tailbone is vestigial is either ignorant or a liar. Tell them I said so. But folks, that is propaganda. That should not be in a textbook. Textbooks ought to be accurate. That’s not accurate, that’s pure propaganda. Hovind does not explain what these "valuable" functions are, but regardless he is incorrect. "Vestigial" does not mean an organ is useless. A vestige is a "trace or visible sign left by something lost or vanished"[7] Cases are known where human tails have been inherited. Furthermore, we now know the genes responsible for the development of tails in mammals, and all humans have them. Inheritance of the tail structure per se is unnecessary since the developmental system has been inherited but is normally inactivated in humans.


4. There actually are no vestigial organs. In the early days they said there were over 200 vestigial organs. That’s because they didn’t know the function of them, that’s all. They thought the pituitary gland was vestigial. I mean they had whole lists of vestigial organs. There are no vestigial organs and even if there were that’s the opposite of evolution. That’s a lousy way to have your theory work. Show kids things that they are losing and that is supposed to explain how we got it all? I don’t think that is good evidence. "Vestigial" does not mean an organ is useless. A vestige is a "trace or visible sign left by something lost or vanished"[8]. Examples from biology include leg bones in snakes, eye remnants in blind cave fish[9], extra toe bones in horses, wing stubs on flightless birds and insects, and molars in vampire bats. Whether these organs have functions is irrelevant. They obviously do not have the function that we expect from such parts in other animals, for which creationists say the parts are "designed." Vestigial organs are evidence for evolution because we expect evolutionary changes to be imperfect as creatures evolve to adopt new niches. Creationism cannot explain vestigial organs. They are evidence against creationism if the creator follows a basic design principle that form follows function, as H. M. Morris himself expects[10] They are compatible with creation only if anything and everything is compatible with creation, making creationism useless and unscientific.


Detecting Design[edit]

1. By the way, you don’t have to see the designer to believe He exists. You believe a lot of people exist that you’ve never seen. For instance, I have a Casio Databank stop watch—$50 at Wal-Mart. This thing holds a hundred and fifty phone numbers. It’s a calculator, a stopwatch, and an alarm clock. It does not tell time—you have to look at it. But this is an amazing machine. Now, I don’t have to go to Japan and see the guy who made this to believe he exists. See, when you see a complex structure like a watch it is common sense to say, "There must be a designer." I don’t have to see Him to believe He exists. There just must be one, that’s all. When you see a complex machine, you should come to two logical conclusions: there is a designer and he’s pretty smart. And when you look at science—whether it is through the telescope or microscope—when you look at anything in nature you should come to two conclusions: there is a designer and He’s pretty smart.

Science ought to bring students to the Lord. But Satan is using it to bring students away from the Lord. And I resent that. I like science. I taught it for 15 years. I’ve got nothing against science. But I sure resent this evolution propaganda being stirred in with our science. That’s not fair.

This is a false analogy. Deciding if an unnatural object, such as a watch, has been designed is quite easy. Especially if you are already familiar with the design of a watch. However, a problem emerges when trying to declare natural objects to been designed. What do you compare a natural object with? What would an non designed natural object look like? What would be the characteristic on non designed natural object? In what way would it differ from a Designed object? In short there is a lack of falsifiability within the Design Argument.


2. I like to ask evolutionists this question when they say there is no designer. (By the way, as far as I know, this is the world’s largest rock group: Mt. Rushmore. I’ve never seen a bigger one.) I’ll say, "Fellas,—." (some of you are going to get that by Monday.) I’ll say, "Fellas, do you believe that there is any way these faces could have appeared on this rock by chance? Do you think the wind did that? Do you think erosion did it? How about exfoliation? What about thermal expansion of rock? I mean what caused this anyway? They are going to say, "Well, obviously it was designed." Oh well, very good. Now, I have another question, "Do you believe the men represented here happened by chance?" If they believe in evolution, they have to say "yes." And I’ll say, "Now, wait a minute. You don’t think that their face could come on a rock by chance but you do think their whole complex anatomy with 50 trillion cells could happen by chance. I just have one question if you believe that. "Are you dumb in any other area? Or is that the only one?" It had to be designed folks. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure that out. Mt. Rushmore is made entirely of natural material. There are lot of examples of natural forces that do account for designed-looking objects; the rock formation in Maui's Iao Valley State park that bears a striking resemblance to President JFK in profile; the eroded mountainon mars that under coarse-grained resolution looks like a face; the eagle rock off the 134 freeway in southern California that overlooks the town Eaglerock; and many others. We perceive nature to be intelligently designed based on our experience of human artifacts. We know some human artifacts are intelligently designed because we have observed them being made and we have vast experience with human artificers. By contrast, we have no experience with nonhuman intelligent designer, and no experience with a supernatural agent.


Lie #16: The eye is to complex to have evolved[edit]

1. Even Charles Darwin said in his book right here on page 217, Charlie said, "To suppose that the eye could have been formed by natural selection seems, I freely confess, absurd." Charlie very much was confused about the human eyeball because it is so complex. He said, "How could this thing have evolved by chance?" Good question Charlie! How can blind chance make a seeing eye? Explain that to me please! Well, the textbook says, "The complex structure of the human eye may be the product of millions of years of evolution." Why do we have to give evolution the credit for everything when nobody knows of anything that it’s done? The quote is taken out of context. Darwin answered the seeming problem he introduced. The paragraph continues,

Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated; but I may remark that several facts make me suspect that any sensitive nerve may be rendered sensitive to light, and likewise to those coarser vibrations of the air which produce sound. (Darwin 1872, 143-144)

Darwin continues with three more pages describing a sequence of plausible intermediate stages between eyelessness and human eyes, giving examples from existing organisms to show that the intermediates are viable.


Here is a section of the back of your eyeball. The back of your eye is about one square inch but it contains 137 million light sensitive cells. Now, how would you like to be the electrician responsible for wiring that thing up? Would anybody like to make 137 million connections in one square inch? Anybody want to try that? I got a call a couple of years ago. This guy called up. (You never know what you’re going to get when you answer the phone in my place.) I picked up the phone and said, "Hello, Creation Science, this is Brother Hovind." The voice on the other end said, "How can you be so dumb as to believe in Creation?" I said, "Excuse me?" He said, "How can you be so dumb as to believe in Creation?!" I said, "well, what’s my other choice?" He said, "evolution!" I said, "Why would I believe a theory like that?" He said, "Well, don’t you know things in this world are very poorly designed!" I said, "Like what?" He said, "Like the eyeball for instance. The human eye is a poor design." I said, "Sir, I can see fine out of mine." (Well, I’ve got to have a little help now with glasses when I’m reading but don’t tell anybody.) He said, "The eye is poorly designed. Mr. Hovind, don’t you know the blood vessels are in front of the retina?" I said, "Oh, yes sir I knew about that." He said, "Don’t you know that means the light has to go through the blood vessels to get to the retina so that kind of blurs your vision a little bit. I said, "Well, I don’t think it blurs the vision any but yes it is true that the light has to go through the blood vessels. You’re right about that." He said, "See, that’s a poor design!" He said, "The octopus has a much better eye because their blood vessels are behind the retina." I said, "Sir, I don’t know who you are or where you are calling from, but let me explain something to you. We live in the air. UV light from the sun comes down right through the air, it doesn’t get slowed down hardly at all coming through the air and UV light will burn your retina. And so we have blood vessels in front of the retina to protect us from UV light. Now, octopuses live in the water. Water stops UV light so they don’t need the blood vessels in front. Now, if you want to swap eyes with an octopus have at it, but you’d be blind in a few days. We need the blood vessels in front. It’s incredibly designed! Do you have any other dumb questions?" He said, "No, that was it." Click. Anybody that says the eyeball is a poor design is ignorant or a liar! It’s incredibly designed!


Lie #17: There is no evidence for evolving[edit]

Hovind brings up the bacterial flagellum, noting that it's motor operates at 100,000 rpm and concludes this is proof of design. Hovind quotes a textbook, "Humans probably evolved from bacteria that lived more than 4 billion years ago."

So it is a lie to tell kids that bacteria are simple organisms, there is no such thing as a simple organism. Nothing never evolved from anything else.

Where is Hovind's scientific data and testing that there never were simple organisms around the start of life? All he has done here is show the long-debunked irreducibly complex argument proposed by Michael Behe and conclude that there never was any simple organisms.


Lie # 18: Abiogenesis - No evidence we came from soup or life came from non-life[edit]

1. They tell kids you will be tested on this, there is just no proof. It says "the first self-replicating systems must have emerged in this organic soup." That is a lie, there is no proof in any field of science how life can start from non-living material. If you want to believe it evolved, then go enjoy yourself but do not call it science and don't tell people how it happened. Nobody does. Heakel claim that spontaneous generation must be true, not because it had been proven in a laboratory, but because otherwise "it would be necessary to believe in a creator." (Source:Records from the University of Jena trial in 1875. Dr. Edward Blick, Blick Engineering, Norman, OK). h, you are right about that Ernie, must have been a creator. This is another lie on Mr. Hovind's part. To claim that we have no idea in the slightest on how life evolved is nonsense. For decades, massive amounts of scientific material has come out explaining multiple possible methods of how life could have evolved from non-life.[11]


2. They tell about Miller and Urey trying to make life in the laboratory back in the fifties. They made this glass tubing where they circulated four gases through there. They very carefully excluded oxygen, I’ll tell you why in a minute. But they had these gases going through this tube system. An electric spark was supposed to simulate lightning strikes in the pre-biotic soup. And then they had a trap at the bottom to trap out anything that was produced. Well, did they make life in the laboratory? Absolutely not! Never came close.

Back in the 1950's, Urey and Stanley Miller wanted to know how the earth and solar system had come to be. I could have told them. It is right in the Bible. "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth." That’s what it says. It’s real simple, folks—not that complicated. And then it says he [Miller] never proved how life originated. But the students are taught that he made life in the laboratory. Or that life can come from non-living material. That’s what the textbooks teach. Now, is that true?

The theory of evolution does not depend even a little on whether or not spontaneous generation (a.k.a abiogenesis) is feasible, as it only applies after life begins. Cell theory explains why all living organisms are alive, but nobody expects or demands cell theory to explain the origin of life, because it does not try to or hint that it can.

In 1953, drawing from this hypothesis, Stanley Miller sought to determine experimentally if organic compounds really could be formed in these primitive earth conditions. Chemistry Nobel laurete Harold Urey, Miller’s advisor at the University of Chicago, was so skeptical that he did not encourage his student to use this as a Ph.D. dissertation. Miller persisted and enclosed water vapor (H2O), ammonia (NH3), methane (CH4) and hydrogen (H2) in a glass flask and used electrical discharges, stimulating lightening, as a source of energy to facilitate chemical interactions. Even Miller was astonished by the results. At the end of the week of allowing these reactions to occur, the water in the flask was deep red and turbid. About 10 percent of the available carbon was converted into organic compounds of which two percent were amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. These remarkable findings stimulated research around the new world and started a new field of investigation in primitive earth or prebiotic chemistry. Importantly, some of these studies also showed the formation of short chains of amino acids known as peptides.

In 1969 a meteorite fell in Murchison, Australia. Analysis of its chemical composition showed that it contained the same amino acids in the relative amounts as the compounds produced in Miller’s experiment. These findings supported the Oparin-Hypothesis about how organic precursors to primitive life could have been made. The Miller-Urey experiment was only a start toward understanding the possible origins of life on earth.


3. Well, Miller and Urey, in their experiment, both excluded oxygen. There is a reason they did that. They had what’s called a reducing atmosphere. The problem is if you have oxygen, that creates what’s called ozone. And ozone is essential to filter out UV light. You have to have oxygen to make ozone. And ozone has to be there or else the Ultra Violet light comes down and destroys anything here on earth. So they have to have oxygen or you cannot get life to evolve because it would be destroyed.

Another problem: oxygen is found in the lowest rock layers. I don’t believe the geologic column exists anywhere in the world. But even by their thinking, the oldest rock layers have oxygen in them. Also, one of the gases he used was ammonia and UV light will destroy ammonia. So he has to have oxygen to make this work. Life couldn’t possibly evolve without oxygen. The problem is if you have oxygen, it will oxidize whatever you make. See, in the experiment he had, he very carefully trapped out the product that he made. He filtered it out so it wouldn’t circulate through again because the lightning strike would be millions of times more likely to destroy what he made then it would be to create what he made. That’s not realistic for real life. You don’t get to trap out what you make when you are in the ocean. What he made was 85 % tar, 13 % carboxylic acid, and only 2 % amino acid. And out of that only 2 amino acids were created. And those amino acids quickly bond with the tar or the carboxylic acid. He came nowhere close to making life. And the amino acids he made, [there were] basically only two and there are twenty different ones required for life. No, don’t let them tell you that they made life in the laboratory.

The level of hydrogen and methane in the atmosphere of primitive earth is still debated. Some have suggested that methane was present and the atmosphere really was predominantly reducing. There is no debate about the fact that there was only a trivial amount of oxygen in the atmosphere prior to 2.1 billion years ago. This was clearly not enough to produce an oxidizing atmosphere. The real issue has been, “Why did it take1.5 billion years after life began before significant levels of oxygen accumulated in the atmosphere?” The critical point is that even when new Miller-type experiments were performed using various corrected atmospheric conditions the same wide range of organic compounds was produced.


4. See, amino acids are sort of like letters of the alphabet. There are 26 letters in the English alphabet and from those 26 letters you can make millions of words. And you can arrange those words and make an infinite number of sentences. So, what he made was like making a few letters of the alphabet. Problem, half of those were right handed and half were left-handed. If you dropped letters on the floor, half of them would land upside down and backwards. Well, that’s not any good for making a common sense word. And half of the letters he made were backwards. There was a real problem with that. The smallest proteins have 70 to 100 amino acids in precise order and they are all left-handed. DNA and RNA are all right handed and there are millions of those in order. Now, what are the chances of dropping letters of the alphabet on the floor and ending up with 70 to 100 of them in an exact order, all of them right handed? The chances are zero! That will never happen! But the evolutionist has to believe that it happened. They take that totally on faith. They have not made life in the laboratory. By the way, proteins (which they wanted to create from those amino acids—[amino acids] bond to make proteins) they un-bond in water much faster than they bond, and the oceans are completely full of water to the top. And Brownian motion is going to drive them away from each other. It is not going to bring them together. This experiment was a total failure. Even if life could be created at will in the lab Hovind has stated explicitly that he would still argue against "evolution." Also, Mr. Hovind commits a straw man. Purely random formation of DNA/RNA is not what the work in abiogenesis assumes.


Lie #23: Amino acids shows we have a common ancestor[edit]

DNA[edit]

The DNA molecule in your body (the Deoxyribonucleic Acid) is the most complex molecule in the universe. The average person in this room has 50 trillion cells in their body. Each of those cells contains 46 chromosomes - except for the gammates [sic], they've got 23. If you took all of the chromosomes out of your body, you would end up with about two tablespoons of chromosomes. That's it. Extracting all of them from every cell in your body would give you about two tablespoons. But if you stretch them out, each one six or seven feet long (they are wound up like a tight little spring) if you stretched them out and tied them all together, one persons chromosomes would reach from the earth to the moon and back five million round trips. Coming out of one person's chromosomes. Pretty amazing don't you think?! Clarification. Human cells contains 23 pairs of chromosomes. Human gametes (sperm and ova) contain 23 unpaired chromosomes.


Chance of DNA[edit]

One professor told me in a debate—he said, "Now, Mr. Hovind, if we can just get one DNA by chance, evolution can take it from there." Well, there are your odds against getting your first one. But I’ll give you one. I’ll give you two! I’m going to be nice. I’m going to let him start with two DNA.

I did some research on this, folks. I decided the more chromosomes you have, the more complex you must be because it is the most complex molecule in the universe; and so I arranged a bunch of animals and plants in order based upon the number of chromosomes they had. I discovered that penicillin has two chromosomes. Fruit flies have eight. There are a few missing links in there three, four, five, six, seven. I don’t know where they went, but I do believe from this research that I could prove that penicillin slowly evolved into fruit flies. And then over billions of years, they got more chromosomes someplace and turned into either a housefly or a tomato. (They are twins, you know! Pretty tough to tell the difference.) They both have 12 chromosomes. And then very slowly over billions of years we got more chromosomes and became a pea. And then over billions of years they got two more chromosomes and turned into a bee. Pretty close, now: bee—pea, see the similarities? And then very slowly became lettuce. And then a carrot. And when we got to 22 chromosomes a miracle took place. Did you know the possum, the redwood tree and the kidney bean all have 22 chromosomes? Identical triplets. See, that’s a possum; that’s the tree and kidney bean. Hey! Got them right! Look at that! The average scientist can’t tell the difference. They’ve got 22 chromosomes—all three of them. "Let’s see: we’ve got tree, possum, kidney bean and huh, which one is which? I don’t know." Very slowly over millions of years we got enough chromosomes to become a human. Here we are folks: we have forty-six. And if we can just get two more we are going to be a tobacco plant! I know some that already smell like it! Sometimes I’ll get on the elevator and I’ll say, "(sniff) Man, you’re evolving! You are way ahead of me! How did you do that?" And then some day in the far distant future, we may have enough chromosomes to be a turkey—eighty-two. And some day in the way far distant future (now, this won’t happen in my lifetime but maybe star date 349572), we might have enough chromosomes to be a fern! I was in a church a few years ago and a lady came to me after church, stuck out her hand and said, "Mr. Hovind, I’m Fern!" I shook hands with that hand right there. I’ll never wash it again! Why don’t they teach the kids about the chromosome number as proof for evolution? I’ll tell you why: because it goes totally against the theory. You won’t find that mentioned anyplace! Those are facts, folks! Chromosome number does not prove evolution. That’s all a farce, of course. And evolution itself is a farce.

This "chromosome comparison" is one of the worst misrepresentations by Hovind. Everything you have read above about chromosomes is false, except for the existence of different numbers. The number of chromosomes an organism has is irrelevant from a macro evolutionary perspective. Some organisms don't even have chromosomes while others duplicate and triplicate with great ease.

Mr. Hovind here is LYING! His little speech is based upon an article from his web site which is labeled as "A Spoof on Evolution." Hovind knows it's supposed to be a parody because he was the one who wrote it.

For extra evidence, in the slide show version of this presentation Hovind lists the following reasons for DNA not to have occurred by evolutionary mechanisms;

  • DNA is too complex to have arisen by chance
  • Similarities in code prove a common designer
  • The chromosome # does not follow the expected pattern [emphasis added]
  • Very little is known about the workings of DNA

Hovind repeated this lie in a debate with Hugh Ross (old Earth Creationist) in October 2000, Ross–Hovind Debate, John Ankerberg Show <blockquuote>

Oh, yeah, I’ve got a chart on my website, drdino.com, people can look at, you know. Penicilium only has two chromosomes, you know, so that must have evolved first. And then fruit flies have eight, so they must be the next form, you know. ..... Man has 46. Tobacco has 48. So if we keep evolving, we’re all gonna be a tobacco plant. I mean, the whole idea is absurd, and how they believe this I don’t know.


Lie #24: Fossils count as evidence for evolution[edit]

They tell them they have evidence for evolution, here is the evidence they give them: Evidence from fossils. Oh come on, anybody with half a brain knows that no fossil counts as evidence for evolution! None! If you bring some bones into the court room and say 'Your Honor, see these bones right here? There are the ancestors of everybody today.' Any freshman law student can say 'uh, Your Honor, he does not know these bones had any kids that lived.' And why would you think a bone found in the dirt can do something that animals today cannot do; produce something other than their own kind. Fossils simply do not count folks, no fossil counts as evidence for evolution. Fossil are not the backbone of evidence to support the theory of evolution, but they do in fact count as evidence. The fossils reveal to us what creatures were alive during said age. How big they were, how diverse they were, why did they die, and so on and so on. How can we tell if the said fossils had children; this can be proven through phylogeny and genetics. With genetics, we can map a creatures ancestry and find matches.


There is no such thing as a fossil record. This is silly, you cannot look back in the fossil record, you can only look at fossils that only exist in the present. We only put our interpretation on them, okay they do not have a date with them or a card that says 'this one was made 47 million years ago.' There is no such thing as a fossil record. How do we fall for such a dumb idea. But the textbooks keep saying that fossils can contribute to the understanding of evolution. Darwin said "if my theory were to be true, numberless intermediates varieties...must have existed." (Source: Origin of Species pg. 211) I agree Charlie, there ought to be a whole bunch. This textbook says, since Darwin many intermediates have been found. Well, they are dreaming. This is outright nonsense with a sprinkle of idiocy. Of course there is a fossil record, that is undeniable. The fossil record is structured by which layers of rock the fossil is found. However, Mr. Hovind outright denies the geological column, but Mr. Hovinds denialism does not overturn reality.


Similarities[edit]

However, if you think similarity proves a relationship, let me show you some research I’ve been doing. I’ve been doing a lot of research on things based upon their similarity. I discovered in my research that clouds are 100% water. Watermelons are 97% water—only 3% difference. That proves watermelons evolved from clouds. Not only that, I found a missing link! Jellyfish are 98% are water and so are snow cones. So that prove watermelons evolved into either snow cones or jellyfish, I’m not sure how it happened. I’ll have to work on that some more. But it’s obvious that’s a relationship, you know.

They tell the kid, "We’ve got evidence from fossils." Now, just hold on a minute. What fossil evidence do they have for evolution? Darwin said in his book (which I have right here)—Charlie Darwin said, "If my theory be true," (big "if" Charlie) "numberless intermediate varieties must assuredly have existed." That’s correct Charlie. They must have existed—billions and billions of missing links should be there if the theory is true. But the evolutionists know it is not true. David Raup knows and he’s an evolutionist. He says, "In the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find predictable progressions in general. These have not been found. Yet optimism dies hard and some pure fantasy has crept into the textbooks." Crept in? David, it was thrown in purposely! They want kids to believe this theory.

What is the main difference then a cloud and watermelon (as well as a jellyfish and snow cone): one of them is alive and has genetics. One of them has a parent who passed on its genes to its offspring.

As for David Raup, here is what he had to say. "Now let me step back from the problem and very generally discuss natural selection and what we know about it. I think it is safe to say that we know for sure that natural selection, as a process, does work. There is a mountain of experimental and observational evidence, much of it predating genetics, which shows that natural selection as a biological process works."- David M. Raup, "Conflicts Between Darwin and Palaeontology," Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, pp. 22, 25, Chicago, January 1979.

A decade ago, Kathleen Hunt, a zoologist with the University of Washington, produced a list of a few hundred of the more dramatic transitional species known so far, all of which definitely fit every criteria required of the most restrictive definition. Myriad transitional species have been, and still are being, discovered; so many in fact that lots of biologists and paleontologists now consider that list “innumerable” especially since the tally of definite transitionals keeps growing so fast! Several lineages are now virtually complete, including our own.

Here is the full quote from Charles Darwin,

"Lastly, looking not to any one time, but to all time, if my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking most closely all the species of the same group together, must assuredly have existed; but the very process of natural selection constantly tends, as has been so often remarked, to exterminate the parent forms and the intermediate links. Consequently evidence of their former existence could be found only amongst fossil remains, which are preserved, as we shall in a future chapter attempt to show, in an extremely imperfect and intermittent record."

When Charles Darwin published his landmark observations in 1859, he lamented that the fossil record was still quite poor at that time. It was only in the last century or so earlier that anyone had even proposed the possibility that a single species could completely die out, and the first dinosaur wasn’t discovered until Darwin was a boy. Fossils were known by previous generations of course, but extinct and therefore unfamiliar varieties were often mistaken for the fanciful monsters of mythology –if they were recognized at all –which usually requires a well-trained perception of both geology and animal morphology. That’s especially rare when you’re talking about an organism no one has ever seen alive.

A century-and-a-half since then, we’ve found millions of evolutionary intermediaries in the fossil record, much more than Darwin said he could reasonably hope for. There are three different types of transitional forms and we have ample examples of each. But creationists still insist that we’ve never found a single one, because what they usually ask us to present are impossible parodies which evolution would neither produce nor permit (like the Crocoduck).


Lie #25: Horse Evolution[edit]

or instance, they tell the kids that the horse evolved from a four-toed ancestor. How many have ever heard of that before—about the horse used to have four toes? That’s pure bologna! That didn’t creep into the textbooks. That was thrown in! It’s in nearly every textbook, though, about the horse evolving from a four-toed ancestor. What they don’t tell the kids is that the so-called Eohippus, the ancient horse, had 18 pairs of ribs, the next one had 15 pairs of ribs, the next one after that had 19 pairs, the next one after that had 18 pairs. The rib number changes back and forth. Well, that’s kind of interesting! How is that critter going to survive? And the experts are saying, "The evolution of the horse has not held up under close examination."

Here are some problems with the horse evolution theory. The whole thing was made up by Othniel C. Marsh in 1874. He picked animals from all over the world. He did not find them in one place and he did not find them in that order. He made up the entire thing! It’s propaganda! It was invented. Modern horses are found in layers with and lower than the so-called ancient horse. (Mr. Hovind's source: Krushilin, Yu and Ovcharov, V "A Horse from the Dinosaur Epoch?" Moshovshaya Pravada (Moscow Truth) trans. A Jame Melnich (February 5 1984)) And the ancient horse is not a horse at all. It’s called a hyrax and it is still alive today in South America. It’s about the size of a fox and it’s a meat-eating animal with sharp teeth. That is just propaganda. The ribs are different, the toes are different the teeth are different. And experts are saying, "Look, that’s not a missing link. Not at all." Tulsa Zoo finally removed their horse evolution display because 2000 people signed a petition and said, "Get that thing out of the zoo!" Why does a zoo have to teach evolution? Why doesn’t the zoo teach about animals!

Evolution is unrelated to science. Why do they feel like they have to get evolution into the zoos [and] into the textbooks? Well, folks, otherwise there is no way they can get people to listen to their religion. They have to push it off at your tax payers expense. A friend of mine wrote to the Tulsa Zoo and said, "Why do you have the horse evolution on display? It’s been proven wrong years ago." The director wrote back and said, "We haven’t had the funding to remove it." I’ve got all of the letters over there on the table. Man, I thought, "haven’t had the funding to remove it!?" Yale University still has the horse evolution on display right now. I was there a couple of years ago. There while I was standing at Yale University Peabody Museum, hundreds of kids came through the museum and went past the horse evolution display and were never told it was wrong. Now, what we need is somebody at Yale who has got some intelligence and some courage to do the right thing and get the horse evolution out of the Peabody Museum. Now, are you trying to educate the kids? Or are you trying to indoctrinate the kids in your religion? And if somebody from Yale gets this tape, get that thing out of your display. That’s not science—that’s propaganda. Don’t lie to the kids. Be honest, take it down. They arrange these animals in order. And say that’s somehow proof.

Mr. Hovind commits a straw man. What Hovind is referring to here is the sometimes oversimplified representation of horse ancestry which is presented to the lay public. Hovind contradict himself. "A Horse from the Dinosaur Epoch?" in is not horses. "Moscovskya pruvda" is newspaper for a general public. It is not the peer-reviewed scientific journal. This paper was informed of discovery of hoof-like impression. There are no evidences that it is horse's track. There are no confirmations from professional paleontologists. Also, Mr. Hovind is completely false about the hyrax. The hyrax is an African animal, he hyrax also feeds on "seeds, fruit, and leaves, and in large numbers can be serious agricultural pests not meat as Mr. Hovind lied about). Finally, the hyrax is in no way related to the horse. Hyraxes are sometimes described as being the closest living relative to the elephant.[12]


Lie #26: Artificially arranging positions to prove evolution[edit]

Just because you can arrange animals in order, does not prove a thing. Even if you find them buried underneath in a certain order, that does not prove a thing. If you got buried on top of a hamster, does that prove he is my grandpa?


Scales and Feathers[edit]

They tell the kids though, that birds are covered with feathers, (which is true) and they are going to say, "Boys and girls, bird feathers evolved from the same scales that protected the dinosaurs so well." Hold on a second. Feathers are extremely complex. The only similarity they have between feathers and scales is they are both made from the same protein. It is called Keratin. Your finger nails and your hair are made from the same stuff. That doesn’t prove that they are related. It proves they’ve got a common Designer. Did you know battleships and forks are both made out of the same metal? Iron. That proves that they both evolved from a tin can 27 million years ago. (Jump frog jump!) Man, you’re getting the wrong conclu-sions here folks! Similarity proves a common Designer. At least Hovind noted the compositional link between scales and feathers. According to Hovind its just a coincidence of Design that this matches what would be expected from an evolutionary perspective. And the fossil positioning? Just coincidence as well? Mr. Hovind's blatantly false comparison with forks and ships is irrelevant since both are man-made and do not reproduce on their own to pass down genes and variety.


There are real problems with the bird evolution from reptiles. The lungs are totally different. Reptiles have a sac type lung. Birds have a tubular type lung. Very different lung system. Modern birds are found in layers with and lower than the so-called dinosaurs. How can they be the ancestors? How can the dinosaurs change to birds? The birds were already there, even by their thinking, with their faulty geologic scale. Scales and feathers attach to the body differently and they come from different genes on the chromosome. Birds have a four chambered heart. Reptiles have a three chambered heart. Major change there, folks! How is that going to survive? In addition to just the heart changing, you have to get the nerve supply changing. And the DNA code changing so the next generation has this heart change. It doesn’t work. Hovind began this section accurately describing that birds are an offshoot of dinosaurs. Hovind then inaccurately states that all dinosaurs were reptiles. The DNA you are born with is the same DNA you will contribute to your offspring (with the occasional error perhaps) There is no evidence to support Hovind's claim of modern birds found "earlier" than the "so-called dinosaurs".


Reptiles lay a leathery egg. Birds have a hard-shelled egg. There are thousands of differences between reptiles and birds. There is no evidence. And the experts know that. Even W.E. Swinton from the British Museum of Natural History, the largest fossil collection in the world. He said, "there is no fossil evidence of the stages through which the remarkable change from reptile to bird was achieved." Now, he believes that happened, but he knows that there is no fossil evidence. But the textbooks tell the kids that there is. Swinton accepts the theory of evolution. He simply disagrees with the current arguments for avian evolution. Hey, Mr. Hovind: what kind of eggs does the mammal platypus lay? While you may point to the many differences between reptiles and birds, you will be surprised that they share more similarities than differences.


Archeopteryx[edit]

They show the picture of Archaeopteryx and say, "Boys and girls, this is Archaeopteryx." (Wow—big word, write that down. It will be on the test!) Archaeopteryx. It means "ancient wing." They are going to say, "Boys and girls, this used to be a dinosaur. This is the missing link." It’s a bird, teacher. It’s twelve inches long. Come on! It’s the size of a pigeon. Only six have been found. Some people think they are all fakes. I don’t know. Even if they are legitimate though it’s just a bird. It’s 100% bird! The size of a crow.

Claws and Teeth

They are going to say, "Well, now, he’s got claws on his wings. Do you see those claws right there? Don’t you see? That proves he used to be a dinosaur." Come on now, teacher. Twelve birds today have claws on their wings. The ostrich, the hoatzin, the touraco, the ibis. I can’t name them all but there are twelve birds that have claws on the wings right now! By the way, going from claws to no claws would be an example of losing something, not gaining something. Is that how evolution works? You lose everything until you have it all? I don’t get it. Well, they are going to say, "Well, he’s got teeth in his beak! See those teeth right there? That proves he used to be a dinosaur!" Well, now, hold on just a minute, some birds have teeth, most don’t. Some reptiles have teeth some don’t. Some fish have teeth, some don’t. Some of you have teeth. Some don’t. That doesn’t prove you used to be a dinosaur. And again, going from teeth to no teeth is losing, not gaining! That’s the opposite of what we need!

Archaeopteryx is defined to be a bird (technically, an avialan). However, it had many more dinosaurian traits than bird traits. Its main bird traits are
  • long external nostrils.
  • quadrate and quadratojugal (two jaw bones) not sutured together.
  • palatine bones that have three extensions.
  • all teeth lacking serrations.
  • large lateral furrows in top rear body of the vertebrae.
Other birdlike traits of Archaeopteryx are found also on several non-avian dinosaurs. These traits include feathers, a furcula (wishbone) fused at the midline, and a pubis elongate and directed backward. The birdlike hallux (toe) attributed to Archaeopteryx is not found on a recent better preserved specimen. In addition, Archaeopteryx was intermediate between dinosaurs and modern birds in the shape of the coracoid and humerus bones and the brain.


In Conclusion[edit]

Kent Hovind begins to repeat the "falsehoods" of evolution and provides several methods for the parents to take action to challenge evolution being taught in public schools. His first choice for the parents is to have them drop their children from public schools and put them in a private religious school or home school them.


Adolf Hitler said, "Let me control the textbooks and I will control the state." Here most teachers don’t realize they can teach Creation Science in a public school. It’s perfectly fine. Hey, not only can you teach Creation Science in public schools, you can teach it right out of the Bible! And teach or devote a class to religion and have the textbook be the Bible if you want! We know what happened in 1963 when the Bible was taken out and evolution was put in the schools, but we’ve been deceived by the ACLU folks. 1963 the Supreme Court banned the use of the Bible to try to get kids saved; which is not good, obviously, but that’s a lot better than what the ACLU (the American Communist Lawyers Union) has led us to believe. They did not throw the Bible out, we threw the Bible out! We allowed ourselves to be deceived. It is not against the law to teach the Bible in a public school. It is perfectly fine to teach Creation Science. Do you know what else Hitler said? "Secular schools can never be tolerated because such a school has no religious instruction and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith.... We need believing people."-- Adolf Hitler, April 26, 1933


See Also[edit]

External Links[edit]

Footnotes[edit]

  1. http://www.sciam.com/2002/0302issue/0302numbers.html
  2. http://www.noanswersingenesis.org.au/henke_on_woody.htm
  3. Clark, Ronald W., 1984. The Survival of Charles Darwin: A biography of a man and an idea. New York: Random House., 199; See also Yates, Simon, 1994. The Lady Hope story: A widespread falsehood. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hope.html
  4. Dewey, John, 1910. The influence of Darwinism on philosophy. In The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy and Other Essays in Contemporary Thought, New York: Henry Holt & Co. Reprinted in Fisch, M.H. (ed.), 1951, Classic American Philosophers, New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
  5. Korol, A. et al., 2000. Nonrandom mating in Drosophila melanogaster laboratory populations derived from closely adjacent ecologically contrasting slopes at "Evolution Canyon." Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 97: 12637-12642. See also Schneider, C. J., 2000. Natural selection and speciation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 97: 12398-12399.
  6. Berzin, A. A. (1972) The Sperm Whale. Pacific Scientific Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography. Israel Program for Scientific Translations, Jerusalem. Available from the U. S. Dept. of Commerce, National Technical Information Service. Springfield, VA. See also, Hall, B. K. (1984) "Developmental mechanisms underlying the formation of atavisms." Biol. Rev. 59: 89-124.
  7. G. & C. Merriam. 1974. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary. New York: Simon & Schuster. pg. 769
  8. G. & C. Merriam. 1974. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary. New York: Simon & Schuster. pg. 769
  9. Yamamoto, Y. and W. R. Jeffery., 2000. Central role for the lens in cave fish eye degeneration. Science 289: 631-633.
  10. G. & C. Merriam. 1974. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary. New York: Simon & Schuster. pg. 70
  11. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrMuFpGlcpk
  12. "Hirax Song is a Menu for Mating". The Economist. 15 January 2009. http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12926018. Retrieved 15 January 2009.